Everything is so serious these days that it is nice to find some levity.  This is good – a company recently tracked aspects of 75,000 tech support calls.  They have some gender-related data (emphasis mine):

Male callers: 64% didn’t bother to read the instruction manual before calling for help.

Female callers: 24% didn’t bother to read the instruction manual before calling for help.

Male callers: 12% just needed to plug in their gear to “resolve their issue”.

Female callers: 7% ditto!

Female callers stayed on the phone with tech support 32% longer than male callers.

66% of tech support operators said they preferred dealing with female clients, anyway.

So according to the first point, 36% of guys did read the instructions?  I am embarrassed that so many did.  Time to check their man cards.

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Isn’t that the truth?  Here are some sobering points from a CNNMoney.com article:

Businesses with fewer than 50 employees cut another 75,000 workers in October, according to estimates released Wednesday from payroll processor ADP.

…

A telephone survey of 830 small business owners conducted by management consulting firm George S. May International from Oct. 28-30 found that 74% of the owners polled do not plan to increase their staff headcount in the next 90 days.

It has been our experience that sales hiring typically slows down during the holiday season, but companies often discuss their Q1 hiring plans with the intention of a fast start to the new year.  Unfortunately we simply aren’t hearing that talk this year.

The article provides insight into the small business world today (my bold):

After three years of growth, sales at small companies — those with annual revenue of less than $10 million — have declined by nearly 4% this year, according to a recent analysis by Sageworks, which tracks financial data at privately held companies.

There is one type of company that continues to hire – aggressive companies set to grab market share.  We are still working with them in assessing sales candidates at a reduced, but steady rate.

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